how to emit only metadata?

[roterdam]

Is it possible to emit only metadata? Will it be cheaper if somehow possible? In a scenario I have I only care about metadata and not really the code.

Is it even possible? By that I mean is type-checking the only pre requisite for metadata?

[bkoelman]

I believe you can.

See this file for an example; just pass in " " (string with a single space) as source code, and it creates an assembly on disk for you.

[MrJul]

I think you're looking for #2184, yet to be implemented.

[gafter]

There is an API to do this, but it is not possible from the command-line yet. More details to follow...

[gafter]

See

roslyn/src/Compilers/Core/Portable/Emit/EmitOptions.cs

Lines 15 to 18 in 2f2629b

	/// <summary>
	/// True to emit an assembly excluding executable code such as method bodies.
	/// </summary>
	public bool EmitMetadataOnly { get; private set; }

Closing as answered (for the API) and dup of #2184 (for the command-line).